Chains that Bind
by Bleachhead88
Summary: Ichigo is struggling with his position in the group now that he has lost his Shinigami powers.  Now he is the only one in the position to save Ishida but he's not sure if he's strong enough to do so. AU. Ichigo and Ishida friendship only.
1. Chapter 1

A/n: Ok, so here we go. Again, a bit of Ishida whump, but not near as much as the last one. This is also AU since I still haven't seen anything past Aizen's demise.

Of course, I do not own Bleach, just like to borrow it from time to time.

Chapter 1

"Ichigo, where are you going?" Rukia called after the moody boy as he wandered away from the camp.

With a backward wave to her he said, "Out for a walk. Be back later."

Rukia sighed at him. She knew that he was being particularly moody lately since he had completely lost his Shinigami powers and he wanted to spend more and more of his time by himself. But she wished that he could see that he was alienating his friends this way. Everyone hated to see him like this and wished that at least their friendships didn't have to suffer even if their fighting camaraderie had come to an end.

She shook her head and turned away to go find Inoue and see if she needed any help with their tent. It had been Inoue's idea that they all get together and go camping to try and rekindle their friendships, but it didn't seem to be working very well.

Ishida had already disappeared a while ago, saying he was going to search for some firewood. Rukia had been surprised that the antisocial boy had even agreed to come along in the first place. It didn't really surprise her that he would wander away from the group at the first chance.

Chad also was not much of a socialite and had been silently setting up the camp and being as monosyllabic as always. It was really Rukia and Inoue that were carrying the conversation while Ichigo had just been sitting and brooding as he stared at the empty fire pit. Apparently he got tired of staring at nothing and listening to the girls babble and now he too was splitting off for some solitude.

Ichigo heard Rukia sigh at him, but he chose to ignore it and continued on his stroll with his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He had known when he had used the final Getsuga Tensho on Aizen that it would be the end of his Shinigami days, but it had been the only option at the time. If he hadn't made the sacrifice, everyone in Karakura would have been killed and he couldn't allow that to happen.

Now, he was left powerless and whenever his friends were in danger; he was no longer able to be the one to protect them. It felt as if he was completely useless now. Not only that, but he had become a burden to them. Now he was often the one that needed protecting.

For the first time, he truly understood how Ishida must have felt when he had briefly lost his Quincy powers. Ichigo couldn't understand why Ishida had tried so hard to distance himself from the group and do things on his own when he had lost his powers, but now Ichigo knew why. The Quincy didn't want to be a burden to his friends and he didn't want to show to them how pathetic he had become.

Ichigo clenched his fists in anger at himself. He knew that his friends didn't see him that way. In fact, it was because of the incident with Ishida that he knew this. He knew that he had never thought of the Quincy differently, even after they had finally found out about his loss of power. He had still cared for him just as much and didn't want to see him get hurt. That was how his friends felt about him now.

But that didn't change the fact that Ichigo felt completely useless and in their way.

That was why he walked away from them now. Just being in their presence was enough to remind him of how he no longer fit in their group. It reminded him of how, though it had been him that had caused their little group to form, he was now an outsider.

While strolling through the woods, Ichigo could hear the rush of the rapids not far away. He had used to go camping here as a kid and knew that there was a foot bridge that spanned the large river that cut through the park. He altered his course slightly and made for that bridge. Since there hadn't been a fire made yet for him to stare at, he decided that rushing water would be just as good. Right now, he just wanted to get lost in his own thoughts and the best way to do that was to stare at something static like water or fire.

He tramped onto the shaky bridge a moment later and plopped down at the halfway point, staring through the wooden slats of the side of the bridge at the water that splashed by below. The river here was extremely deep and perilous. Huge rocks littered the path of the rushing water, causing terrifying eddies and powerful undertows.

Of course this created a perfect static image for Ichigo to stare at as he drifted into his own melancholy thoughts. The rush of the white water below seemed to drown out the pressure of his current situation and return to a time when things were so much simpler… a time before he had ever met Kuchiki Rukia. A time before he had even ever heard of Shinigami in anything other than ancient myths… A time before he had very many close friendships…

A noise suddenly reached his ears and pulled him back into the present. He looked further upstream to the side of the bank that he had come from. There were some men there yelling about something, but the rush of the rapids drowned out what they were saying. There seemed to be some kind of struggle going on in the middle of the group as they all slowly made their way closer to the edge of the water. Something seemed odd about their movements but Ichigo couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Ichigo leaned forward, staying low, but watching what was happening intently. Something felt very off about these men and he didn't like how close they were getting to the dangerous waters.

Just then, the men right by the river shifted sideways and moved back as another man walked forward. He was carrying something over his shoulder. Ichigo was too far away to clearly see what it was that he was carrying, but for some reason he got a horrible feeling when he saw it.

Suddenly, the thing the man was carrying moved and started to trash about in the man's grasp, trying to break free. Ichigo gasped as he realized that it was a person that was tightly bound that the man had hefted over his shoulder. Sounds of hissing laughter from the other men now reached his ears.

The man hefted his captive up above his head, preparing to toss the body into the river. As he did so, Ichigo was finally able to see the face of whomever it was that they had. A white, pointed face stared out of squared framed lenses at the rushing water that he was about to be tossed into. Ichigo swore under his breath. It was Ishida.

Before Ichigo could even move, the man hurled the Quincy into the rapids, still bound tightly in the chain. The group then turned and walked away, not even bothering to watch as Ishida was dragged under the water by the swift current and the weight of the chain.

"Damn it!" Ichigo cursed again. He knew that there was no time for him to get help from the others if there was any hope of saving his friend, but he feared that he was not going to be strong enough on his own.

He saw a patch of Ishida's black hair bob back towards the surface just a few feet away from the bridge now as his body was tossed about just below the rushing water. Without wasting another thought, Ichigo kicked off his shoes and dove into the river where he expected the Quincy to have been taken to by now.

The water closed around him and grabbed at his body, tossing it about in a rush of white and black. He reached out blindly, hoping that he might get lucky enough to find his friend. His head broke the surface even as he was pulled further downstream. He searched the water for any sign of Ishida, but all he could see was the swirling white water and huge, dangerous rocks that he was rushing past as he was carried along by the rapid current.

"Ishida!" he cried. He didn't have a hope that his friend was going to respond, but there was nothing else that he could do. "Ishida!"

Suddenly he heard a faint thud from a rock that was just to his right. Looking over, he saw black hair snake around the rock, pulled around it by the current. There was a pink stain on the rock just barely above the water line that was washed away even as Ichigo saw it.

Ichigo kicked and swam against the eddies all around him, striking out for the current that he knew that contained his now injured friend. When he reached a place just downstream from the offending rock, he felt his body grabbed by an even faster current and hurled rapidly through the river.

A ripple of white fabric caught his eye just ahead. Ichigo took a deep breath and dove under the water, kicking furiously has he reached out blindly in front of him. Suddenly his hand encountered wet fabric and closed tightly around it. He yanked back on the fabric and suddenly a body collided with his own.

Wrapping one arm around Ishida, Ichigo used the other and his legs to fight for the surface again. A moment later he found himself able to breathe again. He reached out blindly for the next rock that was now rushing up to meet him. He half caught it, half slammed into it.

He could hear moaning and gasping from the sodden body that he was now trying desperately to hang onto as he tried to pull both of them onto the rock and out of the rapids. Somehow, he managed to do so.

Shakily, he released Ishida's body on the large rock that was placed well above the water and coughed up a mouthful of the liquid.

"Damnit… Kuro…saki," Ishida's weak and rasping voice gasped out from beside him.

"A thank you would be a little more appropriate; don't you think you stupid Quincy?" Ichigo said as he turned to his friend and reached out to try and undo the chains that were tightly binding his body.

Ishida tried to move out of his reach while staying on the rock. "No… don't… touch," he gasped.

Ichigo still reached out and took hold of the chain, but as he did so, Ishida gave a strangled gasp of pain as the chain moved in Ichigo's grasp. Ichigo let go as if the thing had just burned him, but the damage had been done. Ishida was struggling even more now for each breath. The chain was biting deeply into his body, restricting any movement from him and crushing any space that he had to breathe.

"Chain… tightens…" Ishida gasped weakly between his shallow breaths. "Touch…gets…tighter."

Ichigo stared down at Ishida in horror as he realized that he just made the situation even worse. If the chain tightened when someone touched it, how was he going to get it off of his friend? The only thing he could think of was maybe wrapping his hands in something, but that was going to restrict his dexterity and with how tightly the chains were wrapped around Ishida's body now, that would make it almost impossible. But if he so much as slipped in the process and brushed against that chain, Ishida wouldn't be able to breathe at all and it could crush him completely.

He needed help, but they were stranded in the middle of the river. Even if he could swim for the side, he couldn't take Ishida with him. "Kuro…" Ishida gasped. He paused as he tried to find the breath to force the rest of the name out but he was struggling and gave up. "Only… man…" he tried again.

"Ishida, hang on. I know, I'm sorry. I've made this worse and I'm fairly useless right now. But just hold on, I'll get some help."

He scanned the area again and saw that there was a possible path of rocks that he might be able to follow back to the water's edge. He wasn't going to be able to take Ishida with him. He was going to have to risk leaving the Quincy stranded on the rock while he went and got help. That was assuming that he didn't slip and fall back into the rapids on the way.

"Listen," Ishida tried his hardest to snap at Ichigo, but there was no power behind it. Still, Ichigo looked back down at his friend as he struggled to get a larger breath. "Man put on… chain… take off."

Ichigo stared down at Ishida, wondering what it was that he was trying to tell him. He puzzled over it a moment as Ishida looked at him, seemingly trying to will Ichigo to understand. "The guy that put the chain on you can take it off again?" Ichigo asked him.

Ishida nodded. He took one more breath and added, "Get help… strong," then he let his head fall back and his eyes close as he concentrated on taking each breath. As his head leaned back, Ichigo could see a slight trickle of blood running down the side of the rock where his head rested.

"Ishida, you're hurt," Ichigo said as he reached out and put his hand behind Ishida's head.

"Leave… it" he whispered back. He didn't even bother to open his eyes again. He just didn't have the strength to waste anymore now that he needed to struggle so much for each tiny breath.

Ichigo took his hand back and saw that it was covered in blood. "Hold on Ishida," he said and then stood up on the rock, sighting down the path that he had spotted a moment ago. He knew that the Quincy didn't have much time left the way that he was hardly able to breathe now and with the blood that he was losing along with obviously having a pretty hard knock to the head. But Ichigo also knew that if this guy had been able to do this to Ishida, then he was not going to be any match for him now that he was a mere human again. That meant that he was going to have to find his way back to the camp and get the others before they could start a search for this mysterious man.

Ichigo set out, carefully making his way from rock to slippery rock. He had gotten to the last rock before he was to make a leap to the river's edge when he paused and looked back at the unmoving body of his friend. Ishida's white shirt nearly blended into the crash of the white water all around him and his grey pants blended into the rock. It was only the splash of black hair that set him out against the scenery.

"Hold on," Ichigo whispered back and then leapt onto the river bank and took off at a run, ignoring the sticks and pine needles that jabbed into his bare feet. He didn't even realize that he had unconsciously taken in the area and knew exactly how to get back to their camp as fast as possible.

Even as he ran, his mind was still back at that rock, staring down at his friend as he fought for each breath. He couldn't help but think that that was how he had felt for the last several weeks. Everyday was becoming harder and harder for him to breath as he truly realized how weak he had become. Each breath was harder to take than the last as he watched his friends put themselves into danger and he was unable to be at their sides.

Watching Ishida struggle like that, fighting just to take his next breath, made Ichigo realize that he had begun to give up on his figurative breaths. He had been slipping away from his friends, excluding himself from their group and keeping as much distance as he could. He was giving up his fight and taking longer and longer pauses between breaths.

Ichigo realized that it was his friends that were keeping him afloat now and he had been trying to break free from their hold. He was slowly losing himself as he pulled away from them.

That day that he had met Rukia, he had been bound to her through the power he had received. That power bound him in return to Chad, Inoue, and Ishida. Now that the power was gone, though, the chains that had bound them together were still there. It had gone beyond the flow of power and strength. But Ichigo had been attempting to sever even those chains between them and he realized now that he didn't really want that.

"Don't give up, Ishida," Ichigo whispered. "It would be easy, but don't give up buddy."

Suddenly Ichigo burst through the foliage to a clearing and practically ran right into Chad.

"Ichigo!" Chad gasped as he turned around and caught Ichigo as he started to pitch forward after coming to such an abrupt stop.

"Chad!" Ichigo gasped. "Ishida! He's in trouble! We have to find the man that caught him so he can get the chain off!"

Chad stared at him as if Ichigo had just been speaking a different language as Rukia and Inoue came running up from the other side of their camp site. "Ichigo?" Rukia ask.

"Kurosaki-kun? What about Ishida-kun?" Inoue asked.

Ichigo took another deep breath and then broke away from Chad's hold and grabbed Rukia's arm. "I'll explain as we go, but we have to hurry!" he said and began to pull Rukia along with him.

"Ichigo! What?" Rukia tried to resist his pull, but he wasn't having it and began to drag her along with him.

"It's Ishida," Ichigo said as he walked, not releasing his hold on the petite Shinigami. "I was on the bridge when I saw a group of men further up stream. One man stepped out of the group and threw Ishida, bound in a chain, into the water. I dove in after him and managed to get us up on a rock, but whenever anyone touches the chain, it contracts. He can hardly breathe at all now, and is trapped in the middle of the river on top of that rock and he told me the only one that could take the chain off was the man that put it on him."

He had been explaining in a rush as he led them through the woods towards the place that he had seen the men pitch Ishida into the water.

"Oh!" Inoue exclaimed. "Poor Ishida-kun. Maybe I could cut the chain with Tsubaki?"

Ichigo paused, wondering if that would be possible or if they should even risk it. If it didn't work, it might actually make the chain contract even more and that would be it for the Quincy. But if it did work and it got it off of him sooner…

"Ichigo," Rukia said as she pulled out her spirit pill and popped it. Suddenly she was standing next to her Gigai in her Shinigami form. "Chappy, go wait back at the camp," she told the ditzy impromptu soul. Chappy saluted to Rukia and ran off back to the camp.

Rukia turned back to Ichigo and said, "I think that we might need some more help with this. You and Inoue should get back to Ishida and give her plan a try. Chad, you track down these guys and bring the one we need back to our camp. If Tsubaki doesn't work, Ichigo can meet you there and lead you back. If he does work, then the three of them can meet you there and we can figure out what is going on."

"What are you going to do, Kuchiki-san?" Inoue asked.

"I'm going to get back to town and get Urahara. If you can't manage to get this man and Tsubaki doesn't work to cut the chain, he's probably the only one that is going to be able to figure this thing out. Strange items like this are his specialty after all."

"But, Rukia…" Ichigo began. He was extremely worried that Ishida wasn't going to have time for all of this. She hadn't seen how desperately Ishida had to fight for each breath.

"Ichigo, splitting up is the best way to make sure that we have all our bases covered. If we just go after this guy and we can't get him, then it will take even longer before we can get Ishida free and from the sounds of it, he probably doesn't have much longer. I'm guessing that you touched the chain plenty when you were hauling him out of the water before you knew what you were doing."

Ichigo nodded, unable to voice his own anger at himself for that. "You didn't know, Kurosaki-kun…" Inoue said to him.

"No, you didn't," Rukia said. "But that means that any more mistakes and that will be it for our friend. Now, we have to have as many options open to us as soon as possible and this is the best way."

Ichigo nodded again and reached down, taking Inoue's hand. "Alright, you two get going then," he said and then turned and led Inoue back the way they had come.

Rukia turned another way and launched herself into the sky using Shunpo while Chad turned the way that Ichigo had been taking them and hurried towards the river, hoping to pick up a trail that the men would have left behind.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Struggling for each breath, Ishida laid on the rock, berating himself for having gotten into this position in the first place. He really had left the group to try and find some good firewood, but he hadn't gotten very far when he sensed something else in the woods.

It didn't feel like anything that he had sensed before, but there was a strange spiritual quality to it. Setting down his armload of wood, Ishida had decided to go and check it out. If it did turn out to be some kind of threat, then it would be better for their group if he dealt with it quietly. He had been noticing how very depressed Ichigo would get with each attack that they had repelled and the now ex-Shinigami was not able to do anything. Ishida figured if he took care of this now, then Ichigo would never even have to know that there had been a threat.

He tracked the strange feeling through the woods; all the while the sound of the rapids was getting louder. He knew that he was heading in the general direction of the river and hoped that whatever he was tracking was on his side of the water. He soon discovered that it was.

He came to a clearing that had five men gathered about in it. They appeared to be setting up some kind of trap, though Ishida didn't recognize what it was. He tried to move a little closer to see what was going on when he suddenly felt completely overwhelmed by a spiritual pressure.

He spun around just in time to see a large man looming over him with a chain held in his hands. He was sneering down at the Quincy. "You don't belong here," he said in a strange sibilant voice said.

Ishida had tried to use his Hirenkyaku to escape from the sudden close range that he now found himself, but the man was too quick for him. With a lightening like strike, the man released his hold on one end of the chain and whipped it out around Ishida's body.

Before the Quincy could escape, the chain wrapped around him tightly, binding his arms and legs together. The man released his grip on the chain almost immediately and it self attached to the rest of the chain, completing the bind. Ishida fell over, unable to move.

The men all began to laugh now that they noticed that the other man had caught an intruder. They swarmed over to where the man was now leering over the Quincy. "You won't be getting out of that," he told Ishida. "That chain is very special. It will only unbind for the person that attached it in the first place. And, as an added bonus, it will contract if anyone else tries to touch it."

Ishida opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly had a wad of some fabric shoved into it by one of the other men. He didn't see who it was as they all seemed to look pretty close to the same. The only one that stood out from the group was the one that had bound him. He was larger and had a darker complexion and hair color than the rest.

"Now, what to do with you…" the dark man said.

"Get rid of him," another said quickly.

"He's not what we're looking for."

"Get him out of the way."

"Toss him in the river," the last man said.

The leader looked up at the last one and smiled. "Yes, that would work."

He reached down and snatched the Quincy off of the ground and began to carry him away as the other men seemed to glide and shift all around him as he walked, all the while jeering their leader on.

Ishida weakly cracked his eyes back open where he was lying on the rock in the middle of the river now. _Kurosaki couldn't possibly have known about the chain_, he thought. _And even if he did, there would have been no other way to keep me from drowning_.

Ishida closed his eyes again and refocused his concentration on breathing. _I just wish he would hurry up_.

XXX

Ichigo practically ran back through the forest, dragging Inoue along with him. She stumbled along for a while before finally she said, "Kurosaki-kun. I can't keep up with you like this."

He paused and then dropped down onto one knee and indicated that she should climb onto his back. "Come on, Inoue, we need to hurry," he said to her as she hesitated briefly.

She nodded then and climbed onto his back with a new determined look on her face. As soon as he had her, Ichigo took off at a run, retracing his steps from earlier. When they reached the river's edge, Ichigo could just see the patch of black far out in the middle of the river that marked where he had left their friend.

"Hold on tight, Inoue," he told her. "Try not to move too much. This is going to be tricky."

"Mm," was all she said as she grabbed onto his shoulders a little tighter.

Ichigo hopped out onto the first rock and then to the next. At the third one, his foot slipped slightly as it connected with the rock. It hadn't been the water on the rock, but the slick blood that now covered his feet. He managed to steady himself before they toppled into the water, but he was surprised to see how tore up his feet had become when he looked down. He had completely ignored the pain of the cuts and scrapes that he had been getting as he ran and didn't even realize how badly he was hurt now.

He just gritted his teeth at the sight, knowing that bloody feet were nothing to what Ishida was going through right now. Carefully, he made it across the rest of the way before they were on the rock with Ishida again.

The Quincy still had his eyes closed and his face had become nearly translucent pale in the time that Ichigo had left him. "Ishida-kun…" Inoue said softly to him from her perch on Ichigo's shoulders. There wasn't room for her to also stand on the rock so Ichigo simply knelt beside Ishida and held onto Inoue.

Ishida's eyes flickered slightly before he looked up at them. "In…" he tried to say, but gave up.

"I'm going to try to cut the chain with Tsubaki," Inoue said to him as she fought to keep from crying at the sight of him in so much pain. He nodded almost imperceptibly once and then allowed his eyes to drift closed again.

Inoue called Tsubaki out and the little fairy floated beside her head a moment before drifting down slowly to hover over the chain across Ishida's chest. He then flew back up beside Inoue's head. "I can't do it," he said. "Not if you don't want him cut up too. Even then, there is a powerful charm on the chain that I might not be able to get through anyway."

"But, Tsubaki…" Inoue said to him.

"I cannot do it, woman," he said and then flew back into his place on her hair pins.

"Damn it," Ichigo muttered.

"Where…" Ishida breathed. "Sado…Kuch…"

"Chad is looking for the guy that did this," Ichigo quickly explained. "Rukia went back to town to get Urahara. She thinks that he might know how to get rid of this thing."

"No…" Ishida said as his eyes flew open. He fought even more desperately for a few more breaths as he struggled to sit up. Ichigo wanted to reach out and try to calm him, but he was afraid that he might accidently touch the chain. "Sado… stop… can't…" he gasped.

"Ishida, calm down. Are you saying that Chad can't get him alone?" Ichigo asked.

Ishida nodded quickly. "Too… strong."

Ichigo wrinkled his brow a moment and then said to Inoue, "You're staying here, Inoue. I'm going to go help Chad."

Inoue gasped and said, "But, Kurosaki-kun, you can't…"

"Yes I can," he said fiercely. "I have been spending too much time lately thinking that I am completely worthless now but I'm not. I might have lost my Shinigami powers, but I wasn't exactly a weakling before I had gotten them in the first place."

"Be… care…" Ishida said.

"I'll be careful," Ichigo told the Quincy before he had to struggle out the rest of the words. "You just hold on. We're going to get you out of this, Ishida."

The Quincy blinked up at him. Ichigo saw all the words there that he couldn't speak. He was worried about Ichigo, but glad that he was finally getting over his feelings of uselessness. He was afraid, but he was willing to put his trust in his friends. Above all, he was grateful that they were there with him, even if they couldn't solve this in time.

"Don't give up," Ichigo said to him and then shifted so that Inoue could plant her feet on the rock. It was a balancing act a moment to have all three on them on it, but Ichigo quickly jumped over to the rock he had just come from and then turned around and called back, "He's been hurt, Inoue. You can at least heal him even if we can't get that chain off yet. Just be careful not to touch it."

"I will, Kurosaki-kun," she said. "Please, be careful."

He smiled at her and gave her a thumbs-up before turning and quickly returning to the riverbank.

Now it was Inoue's honey colored hair that caught his eye from the river's edge when he glanced back. He felt a little better about leaving this time, knowing that someone was at least with Ishida now. If the worse should happen and he would be unable to take that next breath, Ichigo hated the thought that he would suffocate out in that river, all alone.

With that, he turned and ran off through the woods again. He could feel the beating that his feet were taking now and he decided that he should probably stop at the camp for a moment and grab his spare sneakers. He was able to ignore the pain, but it was getting worse and he couldn't afford anything that might slow him up right now.

He was only at the camp for a few seconds as he reached into his pack that was still lying beside the fire pit and pulled out the shoes. He slipped his blood covered feet into them and then was off at a run again. He was glad that he had stopped since now he found that he was able to run even faster now that his feet were covered.

He was at the riverbank where he had spotted the men in no time. From there, he could clearly see the path that they had taken from that spot. Just as he turned to follow it, he heard a cry in the woods in the direction he was now facing. The cry was followed by a bright flash he could see distantly through the trees and the sound of a rush of power. He knew that sound, it was Chad's El Directo.

Ichigo gritted his teeth and then took off into the woods, following the sounds of fighting in the distance.

XXX

"Ishida-kun…" Inoue said as she knelt beside the Quincy and called out her healing fairies.

He opened his eyes again and looked up at her. She realized that his vision must be getting bad as it took him a moment to focus on her, even though she was right next to him. "Ishida-kun, how bad are they? Will… Will Kurosaki-kun and Sado-kun be all right?"

He licked his lips as he tried to think of the shortest way to answer her question.

She quickly shook her head, however, before he had a chance to answer her. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask you to talk. Just relax, they'll be back soon. Or Kuchiki-san will be here with Urahara-san and he can do something. I know he can."

She quickly set to work on healing the head wound on the back of Ishida's head.

Suddenly she sensed Chad's reiatsu surge in the distance. She gasped and turned to look off in that direction. She was then even more startled to feel Ichigo's spirit pressure hit her. She hadn't felt that since he had lost his Shinigami powers. It was no where the torrent of energy that his pressure used to be, but she could clearly feel it.

She heard a noise of chains scrapping against the rock from Ishida then and she turned and saw him struggling against his binding. As he weakly struggled, even as he strained for each breath, he began to slip down the rock towards the rushing water below.

"Ishida-kun!" Inoue gasped as she started to reach out to stop his movement. But she snatched her own hand back as she realized she came very near to touching the chain. "Ishida-kun, you're going to fall. Please, calm down!" she begged him.

His eyes were wide and he kept looking off in the direction that Ichigo and Chad were fighting. "Need me…" he gasped. He stopped his attempts at sitting up which stopped his slide down the rock. But he kept pushing outward on the chain with his arms as hard as he could.

"Ishida-kun! You're going to hurt yourself. Please, calm down!" Inoue was beginning to get frantic. She wanted to reach out to him to try and steady him both physically and emotionally, but she couldn't take that chance that she could brush against the chain. If he moved when she was touching him, she could inadvertently kill him.

"She's right, Ishida-san," a voice suddenly said behind Inoue.

She gasped and spun around to see Urahara walking towards her, floating just inches above the tumultuous river. "You need to calm down," he said.

"Urahara-san!" Inoue exclaimed as she stood up and faced him.

Ishida stopped his struggles and looked up pleadingly at Urahara. "My, my…" Urahara said as he came to stand over Ishida. "You certainly have gotten yourself into a mess, haven't you?" He bent over then and reached out to the chain.

Ishida's eyes went wide as Inoue yelled, "Urahara-san, don't!"

But he ignored her and touched the chain at the center of Ishida's chest. Suddenly the chain snapped apart right where he touched it and fell to either side of the Quincy's body. Ishida took a huge gasp that pulled his chest up and caused him to arch his back and then he promptly began to cough as he released it.

"Careful, Ishida-san," Urahara said. "You can't take that much in after subsisting on so little air for so long."

Ishida ignored him as he weakly rolled onto his stomach and continued to cough in between large gasps.

"Urahara-san," Inoue said. "How did you do that?"

"Ah, yes, well…" he said as he looked away uncomfortably.

"You… made it… didn't you?" Ishida said as he continued to try and make up for lack of air over the last hour or so.

"Well… yes, I did." He frowned as Inoue looked up at him in shock. Ishida was still facing the rock, coughing. "I didn't intend for this to happen, I assure you," he said in a rush.

Ishida finally stopped coughing and turned around to face Urahara. "Who are those men, then?" he asked. "I sensed them in the woods. They aren't human, are they?"

Urahara frowned again and said, "No. They aren't. I had thought that they were hollow hunters from Soul Society. There are some non-Shinigami souls that hunt hollows from time to time. That's who they said they were."

Ishida shook his head, "They aren't normal souls either."

Urahara sighed and said, "I can see that now." He looked off in the direction that they could all sense Chad and Ichigo. "I sent Kuchiki-san on to help them, but I think that maybe we all should join them now as well."

Without any more preamble he suddenly disappeared from their sight. Inoue gasped, but Ishida quickly stood up. "We need to hurry," he said. He reached out to her but staggered a moment as he had to fight against a bout of light headedness.

"Ishida-kun?" Inoue said as she reached out and grabbed his arm.

"I'm all right, Inoue-san," he replied. "It's just going to take a moment to make up for nearly suffocating." He reached to her again and said, "I might not be as fast as normal, but I can still get us there quickly."

She nodded and wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he wrapped his around her waist, holding onto her tightly. Suddenly they were both gone from that rock and off following Urahara to join the fight.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Urahara touched down into the clearing where the fight was well underway. He held his hat on his head as he took in the scene. Chad had been bound in the same type of chain that Ishida had at some point and appeared to have at least managed to roll to the edge of the fight. Ichigo was standing between his incapacitated friend and three men that were advancing on him.

The former substitute Shinigami had blood dripping from a slice down the right side of his face and he seemed to be favoring his left leg, but the look in his eyes reminded Urahara of old Ichigo before he had lost his powers and his self confidence. Urahara could feel a charge in the air around him that was fueled almost purely by his force of will.

Rukia was a short ways across from Ichigo and Chad, facing off to three other men. Two of them were swinging more of the magical chains around as if they were planning on lassoing her as well. The third was a larger man with darker features. He squared off in front of the Shinigami, brandishing a katana of his own. It was longer than normal and had wicked looking serrated edge.

Urahara watched as Rukia took a step back and prepared to use one of her Shikai form moves. When he saw this, Urahara put two fingers to his lips and wolf whistled shrilly, drawing everyone's attention and bring the fighting to a brief pause.

"You!" the man with the serrated katana said as he caught sight of Urahara. "What are you doing here, shopkeeper?"

"It seems that you tried to deceive me when you came to call," Urahara said as he lowered his hand from his lips and took a hold his cane. He began to walk over towards where Chad was lying.

"It seems you may have been hiding information from us as well," another man said as he eyed Urahara.

They all watched as the shopkeeper calmly walked over to Chad and knelt beside him. He reached out and touched the chain and it snapped in half just like the one that had bound Ishida.

"YOU!" the man with the blade screamed. "You said that it would only part for the one that put it on!"

Urahara turned around and smiled at the man as Chad began to get up. Ichigo went to him and held a hand out to his friend and helped him up off the ground. "You didn't expect me to make something that could be used against me, did you?" Urahara asked with a smile. "Besides, you said you wanted to capture hollows. These kids don't look much like hollows to me."

The man glared at him as he turned and squared off to Urahara. As he did so, the rest of the men followed suit. They all turned their attention from the others and focused completely on Urahara.

Rukia stepped over and tried to place herself between the lead man and the shopkeeper but Urahara called out to her. "Kuchiki-san, please step aside and keep the other two back as well."

The three gasped and looked at him. "Please do this," Urahara said, never taking his eyes from the leader as he reached down and slipped his sword out of his cane and tossed the casing to the side. "It was my mistake that got all of you in trouble. I will take care of this now."

Rukia exchanged a worried glance with Ichigo and Chad, but none of them made a move.

Ichigo ground his teeth and he watched Urahara facing off to these six strange men by himself. Ichigo had no idea who or what they were, but they certainly had been fast and quite powerful.

Ichigo had arrived on the scene just as the leader had managed to trap Chad in one of the chains. He launched himself at the leader's back, taking the man by surprise. "Ichigo!" Chad yelled as he saw his friend go flying past. But even before the man seemed to be able to react to the attack, the hands of the other men were already snatching Ichigo up and tossed him across the clearing into a tree.

He had landed awkwardly on his left leg when he hit the ground. As he struggled back to his feet, he realized that these men were all moving in tandem. It was almost as if they knew what the others were thinking and planned their moves accordingly. That was the strange kind of movement that he had noticed before at the river that he couldn't figure out.

He watched as the man he had knocked over got up off of the ground and glared back at him. He then reached behind his back and seemed to draw a long, serrated katana from no where. "I've had enough of this interference," he said as he slowly walked back to where Chad was lying on the ground.

Chad looked up and saw that he was the current target. He rolled back, just managing to avoid getting sliced from a downward thrust from the man.

"Chad!" Ichigo yelled as he got up and ran over towards the man and his friend.

Suddenly the other men swarmed around him. Ichigo eyed all of them, taking in each of their positions. "I don't have time to deal with you," he told them as he noticed that the dark man was once again advancing on Chad.

One of the men pulled out a chain and whipped it out at Ichigo. He ducked under it and came up on the other side of the man, throwing a punch into his face and knocking him to the ground. Another chain suddenly swung in towards Ichigo's legs, but this one he leapt over and at the same time, spun around with a kick taking out anther man.

By this point, he had broken from their cluster and took off running for the leader that was about to try another strike at Chad. Ichigo rushed at the man, hoping to knock him over again, but this time the man was ready. Faster than Ichigo was able to follow, he had spun around and slashed out with his blade.

"Ichigo, don't!" Chad had tried to warn when he had seen that Ichigo was about to rush right into danger. But his warning came just a bit too late.

The ex-Shinigami fell back from the slash as a spurt of blood erupted into the air. The leader began to laugh, thinking that he had just thoroughly sliced through Ichigo's head and began to turn his back to the wounded young man.

Ichigo, however, quickly jumped up and placed himself between Chad and the man. The man stared down at him with a little bit of wonder. "You dodged pretty well kid," he said with a level of surprise and compliment.

Ichigo stood there, glaring at the man as he breathed heavily. Blood dripped down into his right eye from the slash that he had taken just above it. He wasn't sure how he had done it, but he had managed to pull up short just in time. It was as if instinct had completely taken over for him because he hadn't even been able to see the movement of the blade.

Suddenly Rukia appeared across the clearing from them.

"Ichigo! Are you all right?" she asked.

The leader spun around and made a snarling sound towards her, "Shinigami…" he hissed. Suddenly he launched himself across the clearing at her. The two men with chains that Ichigo had knocked down earlier quickly followed him over towards her.

"Rukia!" Ichigo called out a warning and had taken a step towards her. But the other three men had suddenly moved to block his path.

That was when Urahara appeared…

Now the shopkeeper was facing off to all six of these powerful men by himself. He didn't understand what Urahara had meant about it all being his fault or how it was that he was able to so easily remove Chad's restraint, but it didn't matter. Even if Urahara had been involved with these villains somehow, it wasn't right that they would leave him to deal with all six by himself.

After several tense moments of the leader and Urahara facing off, rest of the men suddenly surged towards their leader as if on cue.

"Kuchiki-san! Move!" Urahara called as the men grouped right beside where she was standing. There was a sudden flash as all six of the men came together, blinding all of them. A second later, Rukia found herself trapped in the coils of a giant snake like creature.

It appeared black at first, but when it moved and caught the light, they could see that it was actually iridescent, casting slightly different hues depending on how the light hit it. "Rukia!" Ichigo cried and took a step towards the creature.

"No," Urahara said as he stepped in front of him, preventing him from getting any closer. "You two stay back," he said to Chad and Ichigo. He slashed his right hand out while holding his Zanpakuto. As he did so, it transformed slightly into its Shikai form without him even uttering a word. Ichigo looked down at the blade and memories of his training against Urahara came back to him. He knew how dangerous this man could be with that sword. He had seen even more impressive feats done by Urahara even more recently when he had fought against Aizen. He knew that if anyone was going to save Rukia, it would be Urahara. Still, Ichigo wanted to be able to help.

Suddenly Inoue and Ishida appeared in the clearing. Ishida released his hold on the girl and quickly took in what was happening. In the time it took for him to touch down, let go of Inoue, and sight the danger, he had his bow out and a Seele Schneider brought out and aimed at the beast.

"Ishida!" Ichigo cried.

Ishida slipped his eyes to glance at Ichigo for a moment before quickly returning his steady gaze on the creature. "I will thank you later, Kurosaki," he said. "Right now we need to concentrate on this creature."

"Kuchiki-san?" Inoue said, standing just slightly behind Ishida.

Rukia struggled against the tight grip of the snake and said, "Kill this thing!"

"I intend to," Urahara said darkly as he stepped out and stood directly in front of it. "So," he said to the thing. "A Soul Serpent. .. I thought that all of your kind had died out years ago."

The creature laughed a high hissing laugh as the head lowered to look Urahara directly in the eye. "Sssso, Shopkeeper. You've heard of ussss. You are an interessssting human." It then turned its gaze on Urahara's Zanpakuto. "Perhapsss not ssso human after all…" it said.

"No, no more human than you are," he said and then stepped forward with a slash of his blade. "Sing Benihime!" he called, sending a slice of red energy screaming from the tip of the katana, directed at the snake.

It swerved out of the way, but as it did so, it missed Urahara suddenly vanishing and reappearing on top of it. He stood right next to Rukia and he reached down and grabbed her. The dodge that he had forced the snake to make had loosened its grip on the Shinigami and Urahara easily pulled her free.

The snake turned and looked at him and tried to strike at the two with its massive fangs, but the teeth only clamped down on air as Urahara disappeared again with Rukia before the head had reached them.

He reappeared just behind Chad and Ichigo where he gently sat Rukia down. She appeared to be quite faint and slumped to the ground, unable to remain standing. "Rukia!" Ichigo cried as he turned around and went to her.

"The serpent steals soul energy," Urahara explain. "Any contact with it will probably kill you, Ichigo." He raised his voice slightly so that Inoue and Ishida could hear him too and said, "Don't let it touch you. It won't kill the rest of you with a touch, but it can with too much exposure and you will be weakened by it."

The Serpent hissed loudly at them and then suddenly struck out at Ishida who was now the closest to it. The Quincy shot off his prepared Seele Schneider and then disappeared, grabbing Inoue and taking her with him. The blade struck the snake in the nose, but deflected off of it and struck into the ground to the left. Ishida reappeared with Inoue behind the creature and stared in shock at what had happened to his most powerful weapon.

"The hide is nearly impenetrable," Urahara announced.

"Then what are we going to do?" Ichigo cried.

The snake didn't give them any more time for conversation as it dove for the gathered group in front of it while simultaneously striking out at Ishida and Inoue behind it with the end of its body. Ishida pulled Inoue with him again and dodged out of the way.

Ichigo grabbed Rukia and jumped to the right while Chad dove to the left. They all turned and looked and were shocked to see Urahara still standing where he had been but with his sword wedged in the snake's jaw, preventing it from snapping shut on him.

"El Directo!" Chad called and shot a blast at the thing. It hit it in the side of the face, but it didn't as much as budge from the strike.

Suddenly Urahara dropped to one knee as his arms began to shake from holding the snake off. Ichigo, being the nearest now, noticed then that the way Benihime was wedged Urahara's right arm was in contact with one of the fangs.

"Ichigo," Urahara gasped. "Just behind the head… a soft spot…" He took a deep breath then and let go of his blade with his left hand and faced it, palm out, down the throat of the snake. A blast of Kido erupted from his palm and shot down the gullet of the beast.

It hissed in pain and wrench back from Urahara. As soon as his blade was free, he fell back and laid there a moment, gasping, before rolling over and using his sword to pull himself back up to his feet. While Urahara found his feet again Ishida launched into an attack of his own.

The Quincy hadn't heard what Urahara had said and didn't know to aim for this soft spot. Even so, the beast was thrashing around so violently now that it was almost impossible to take an accurate shot anyway.

It began to get irritated with the Quincy and started to focus its attention on him, lashing out with its teeth and tail, trying to snatch or knock him out of the air.

Chad also began throwing his powerful punches at the creature, but nothing seemed to be able to phase it. It suddenly lashed out at a still recovering Urahara. The shopkeeper had his back to the beast and didn't see it coming. But Urahara was saved by Inoue and her shield.

The snake's jaws were foiled again as they tried to close on the ex-Shinigami when they met the edges of Inoue's rejection shield. It hissed and tried to bite through the shield again. It caused the golden triangle to crack, but it held.

By now, Urahara had managed to get out of the way before the third strike came and shattered the shield, sending the snake shooting forward through the place where Urahara had been. But it surprised them all as it suddenly swung around a tree and used its own momentum to launch at Urahara's new location.

"Sing…" was all that Urahara was able to say before he was now wrapped tightly in the snake's coils with the beast's head hovering above his own, ready to swallow the shopkeeper whole.

Ichigo looked around and saw Ishida, Chad, and Inoue trying their best to distract the beast, but none of their attacks were able to affect it enough to draw its attention from its current prey. The snake struck downward, trying to swallow Urahara. The ex-Shinigami had his arms pinned and was unable to use any of his vast amounts of Kido and Zanpakuto abilities to defend himself. He was also clearly suffering from the soul draining that being in contact with the snake created.

Inoue's shield blocked the first strike, but shattered immediately. Ichigo saw that Urahara was about to get eaten if someone didn't do something immediately. He glanced down at Rukia who was trying to stand but couldn't find the strength to. Making an immediate decision, he bent down and snatched Rukia's katana from her hand.

"Ichigo!" she cried as Ichigo turned and ran at the beast. He leapt into the air and stepped onto the snake's back. As soon as his foot touched the scales, he could feel his own energy flowing out of him but he kept running. He ran all the way up the back to the base behind the head just as it was coming down for the final strike on Urahara.

With the last of Ichigo's energy, he drove Rukia's sword down into the soft spot right when it came into reach from its downward path. The sword sunk in all the way to the hilt.

The serpent hissed and screamed as it flailed upward again, tossing Ichigo off of its back and sent him crashing into the ground. The creature released its hold on Urahara who weakly crawled out of the way of the trashing beast before collapsing on the ground.

It trashed and flailed wildly for a few moments before its cries silenced and it finally flopped flat to the ground, unmoving. Everyone slowly looked around, taking stock of what had just happened. It was Rukia that spotted Ichigo's prone body first.

"Ichigo!" she cried as she stumbled to her feet and made her way over to her friend. She knelt beside him and placed a hand over his chest. By now the others had gathered around them. Urahara was leaning heavily on his sword that he had somehow already gotten back into his cane.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Inoue said quietly before kneeling on the other side of him.

Rukia suddenly snatched her hand back with a gasp. A blue glow began to radiate from Ichigo's body. "I hoped that he would be the one to slay it…" Urahara said.

They all looked at the shopkeeper and saw that he was smiling down at Ichigo. Inoue then gasped as she turned around and looked at the body of the serpent. It too was glowing with blue energy. The energy began to slowly break down the body and drifted up and towards Ichigo.

"What…?" Rukia said as she got up and stepped back. The energy was now flowing directly from the disintegrating creature into Ichigo.

"The Soul Serpents…" Urahara spoke. "…Used to be fairly numerous in Soul Society. They were dangerous things because they would steal the spirit energy from anyone they encountered. Their slaughter began with people defending themselves. But it was soon discovered that the one that was able to slay a Soul Serpent would then gain all of the power that the creature had ingested, making them quite powerful. But the hunts for Soul Serpents nearly drove them to extinction. A few learned new tricks to hide themselves such as the splitting and human disguise that we witnessed, and fled to the human world and Hueco Mundo and switched to hollows for their source of soul energy. But that would be why it was so angered with Kuchiki-san and myself. Shinigami had been the main ones to slaughter their kind in the past."

"So Kurosaki is absorbing this thing's power now?" Ishida said.

Urahara nodded. "And if I'm right, a dose of this much power just might jump start Ichigo's Shinigami powers again."

Rukia gasped and looked back down at Ichigo. The young man was glowing almost too brilliantly now for any of them to look at. Still, Rukia squinted through the glare to try and see what was happening to him. She thought she saw some movement in the center of the glow and heard a startled gasp.

As the last of the snake disappeared and flowed into Ichigo, sending Rukia's Zanpakuto clattering to the ground, there was one last violent flash that caused all of them to cry out and block their eyes. When they could see again, the turned and saw Ichigo sitting up in the center of their group, staring dazedly up at them.

"What…?" he said as he slowly began to stand. "What happened? I thought I was dead."

Urahara quickly turned his cane around and tapped Ichigo's chest with the end. Ichigo's body crumpled to the ground, leaving Ichigo, in Shinigami form, standing there. He looked down at himself in complete bewilderment. "How…?"

"You slew the Soul Serpent, Ichigo. You conquered your own fear of inadequacy and killed it," Urahara said as he stepped up to look down at Ichigo. "Your determination to protect your friends has once again restored your powers. You took in all of the power that the creature had acquired over its very long life and it was enough to return your own powers to you."

Ichigo reached behind his back and wrapped his hand around the tang of his Zanpakuto. "Zangetsu…" he spoke in wonder as he slowly pulled the blade from his back. The wrapping fell away from the blade and Ichigo stared down at it. "I've missed you, old man," Ichigo said.

"I never left you, Ichigo," he thought he heard the voice of his Zanpakuto echo in his head.

He looked back up at Urahara who said to him, "Welcome back substitute Shinigami, Kurosaki Ichigo."

With that all of his friends swarmed him and began patting his back and offering him congratulations.

XXX

It was much later that night when the impromptu celebration back at the camp site had died down that Ishida approached Urahara. He sat down beside the ex-Shinigami and began to speak. "You were never deceived by those men, were you?" he asked softly.

Urahara ignored the question and took a sip of tea. Ishida went on anyway. "You knew that it was a Soul Serpent and you were hoping that Kurosaki would be the one to find it. You suggested these woods to the snake when you sold it those items."

Urahara sighed and sat his cup down. "You weren't the one that was supposed to find it, Ishida-san," he said quietly without looking at the Quincy. "We were all lucky that it had switched its taste to hollows or it would have killed you right away instead of trying to drown you."

"Che," he voiced as he turned his head to look at the smiling and laughing Ichigo across the camp. He nudged his glasses up his nose and then said, "You manipulate all of us for your own purposes. That is what I despise about the Shinigami."

They sat in silence for a while then before Ishida sighed and looked down at the ground. "But you, unlike the others, also try to do something for us as well. It is not only for your own benefit that Kurosaki had his powers returned, but for his as well. He has not been the same since that day and I have not seen him enjoy the company of his friends like this since then either."

With that, Ishida stood up and started to walk away. "I am a selfish man," Urahara said, causing Ishida to pause again. "But I hate to see those that I cherish to suffer. I might not always go about things in the proper way, but I don't wish to hurt any of you."

Ishida nodded once without looking back at Urahara and then joined the others around the fire pit. Urahara sat for a while in the shadows of the flickering firelight and watched the comrades enjoy each others company and celebrate with Ichigo. He gave a sigh and then sat his cup down and got up silently and disappeared into the night.

A/n: so, what did you think? Reviews are always appreciated. I still don't have a beta so if you caught any mistakes, please let me know so I can correct them. Thanks for reading!


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